Apart from trailblazing international law, the trial was notable for the gut-punching film of German atrocities; this relatively novel piece of evidence is available for perusal thanks to the magic of the Internet. Caution: Strong stuff. An hour’s worth of Nazi atrocities.The climactic hangings in the predawn hours this day in Nuremberg were conducted by an American hangman who used the American standard drop rather than the British table calibrated for efficacious neck-snapping. As a result, at least some hangings were botched strangulation jobs, a circumstance which has occasionally attracted charges of intentional barbarism.

At that instant the trap opened with a loud bang. He went down kicking. When the rope snapped taut with the body swinging wildly, groans could be heard from within the concealed interior of the scaffold. Finally, the hangman, who had descended from the gallows platform, lifted the black canvas curtain and went inside. Something happened that put a stop to the groans and brought the rope to a standstill. After it was over I was not in the mood to ask what he did, but I assume that he grabbed the swinging body of and pulled down on it. We were all of the opinion that Streicher had strangled.

There were in all 12 condemned to death at Nuremberg; all hanged this day except Martin Bormann (condemned in absentia; it was only years later that his death during the Nazi regime’s 1945 Gotterdammerung was established) and Hermann Goering (who cheated the executioner with a cyanide capsule two hours before hanging). The ten to die this day were:

18 thoughts on “1946: The Nuremberg Trial War Criminals”

Actually Jay and Kevin since the crimes were among other things: Waging Wars of Aggression and Crime against the peace I’d suggest that all American presidents since at least Truman have been guilty of just that.

On the other hand don’t take my word for it ask Telford Taylor, who was chief prosecutor in all the trails after the one commemorated here.

Operation Paperclip: US Army program to hire Nazi war criminals to help post war empire building.

US war on Viet Nam: two to three million people killed

Coups in Chile, Congo, Guatemala, Iran and numerous other countries that led to genocidal slaughters.

Threats to use nuclear weapons, which is itself a violation of the UN Genocide Convention.

Support for dozens of dictators who were inspired, in part, by Nazi atrocities. Death squads in El Salvador, Argentina, the Shah of Iran’s SAVAK, torture in Egypt, Uruguay, Brazil and many other countries whose regimes were given crucial support by the United States.

Sure, there’s lots of war criminals who had nothing to do with the US, but the body count of those killed by the US and its proxies rivals the body counts of the Nazi Holocaust. And the threat to use nuclear weapons, if implemented, would make Auschwitz and Treblinka seem like trivialities in comparison (not a statement I make lightly, since I’ve read the accounts of the rebellions at both death camps).

We need a “Truth and Reconciliation” Commission for the crimes of the US empire to move beyond this sort of violence.

People like Chomsky, as the ancient saying goes, are legion. Indeed, the world is filled with stupid humans; humans who declare there is value in each human life (Hitler, Bundy, Bin Laden, and the assholes who knocked down the towers, etc) and that we are no better than they are. And sadly, even the American academic world is often filled with some of the most stupid people imaginable (Ward Churchill, for example) and I constantly marvel at the mush which passes for their brains. In Churchill’s world, WE, THE UNITED STATES, ARE THE ENEMY!!! In the world of these mental abortions, everything is inverted: Right becomes wrong, we the enemy, and the real enemy is declared the friend. It is nothing more than a parade of fools!

“Noam Chomsky has observed, would have meant that ‘every post-war American president would have been hanged’.’”
REALLY?
For anyone to be so morally blind to the differences between the United States with its objectives and its national character compared to Nazi Germany with its objectives and national character must go far beyond stupidity. Indeed, it must only be described as wicked stupidity.
It is such a degree of utter obtuseness upon which the worst tyrants depend as they attempt to draw parallels between America and Nazi Germany. Such false grayscale then enables THEM to escape the assignments of guilt which liken them to Nazi Germany. Instead, they seize upon such moral confusion, using it to prevent the world from acting against them by claiming a moral equivalence to America. Thusly they provide the weak international community (and the America-haters) with an excuse to do nothing.
And in the meantime, millions of human beings continue to die at the hands of these monsters.

For anyone who thinks Noam Chomsky’s moral idiocy worth considering, all I can say is that you are supported by the Pol Pots, Mao Zedongs, Omar Bashirs, and myriad other uber-mass murderers. And the blood of THEIR victims will cry out agains you, too.